


Dreams by day

by AmnesiaticRoses



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmnesiaticRoses/pseuds/AmnesiaticRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Terazuma starts having weird dreams, he brushes them off as nonsense. But when aspects of them start to come true, he starts to worry that his greatest nightmare - losing his partner - may come true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The abyss

**Author's Note:**

> It's Terazuma, so be prepared for some swearing. And as always, I don't own any of this, I'm just playing in the sandbox.
> 
> Just to warn you, this story was written in 2008. I'm cleaning up and posting the parts that are complete, but it may not get completed. We'll see how I feel once the existing work is edited and up!

It was dark out, well after midnight, but there were enough stars out that, combined with a sliver of moon, they could at least see where they were going. Side-by-side, they moved slowly, carefully, listening and watching for anything out of the ordinary.

Terazuma knew where they were – he’d never done much visiting of Itsukushima when he was alive, had no use for mystical sites or powerful sites or whatever, but now that he was here and paying attention, there was a certain FEEL to the place he didn’t think he’d forget.

Which, he tried to tell himself, was completely stupid. Places didn’t have feels, they had sounds and smells and sights, people and animals and plants. They had history that could act on people’s imaginations (not his, he prided himself on keeping imagination as much out of his life as possible) and that led weaker-willed people to say places felt comforting or frightening or deathly. He tried to tell himself, but it didn’t stop his uneasiness. 

“You know this place is sacred?” Kannuki asked suddenly, her voice low and quiet so it seemed her words would just reach his ears and then stop. “It’s forbidden for people to die here.”

He snorted. “Yeah? What’ll they do about it if someone just drops, tell ‘em no?”

Kannuki shushed him, looking amused and cross at the same time, he thought – though it was hard to tell. Her hair and the dim light left most of her face shrouded in shadow. “That’s disrespectful,” she said. “It might be a thought like that that got us sent here. Visitors keep dying after visiting a place like this. We have to find out what’s going on.”

That struck him as… off, as wrong somehow. If people were being struck down after visiting here, it made more sense to him to investigate when people were here, to question the families of the deceased, to get some idea what to do. So why, then, were they just sneaking around here at night? 

He wasn’t even sure what they were looking for.

Kannuki seemed to know where she was going though, so he stuck as close as he dared, letting her look for whatever she was seeking while he kept an eye out for anything that might be coming for them. It wasn’t unheard of, people attacking shinigami. Hell, Kurosaki and that idiot Tsuzuki seemed to always be getting caught out, a trend for which he pitied the kid and blamed the idiot.  
“Wait! Look there.”

They were coming to the end of the path, and through the thinning trees he could see the moonlit water glittering, hear it washing on the beach. To the right, he could see the torii arch, the ground around it glimmering wetly. With the tide ebbing, it stood on a bed of mud instead of the water’s surface.

Terazuma halted. The breeze over the water pushed its way around the final thin strand of trees, bringing with it a sprinkling of mist. “Kannuki, hang on a second-“

“Come ON,” she insisted, smiling at him and holding out her hand. “I think I just found what we’re looking for. The tide’s going down, it’ll be okay if we’re careful.”

For a long moment he stared at her outstretched hand. Someone observing the situation might have likened his posture and expression to those of a terrified teenager being asked to dance for the first time at his prom, but Terazuma had never been to a prom, hated dancing and didn’t like to admit he’d ever been a teenager, so the comparison would have been lost on him.

“Hajime?”

At the use of his given name, Terazuma was brought back to the real world. He shoved his hands into his pockets so hard he felt one seam give a little, then stepped around his partner and out of the trees ahead of her. If there WAS something out there, it was going to deal with HIM first, not her.

The shoreline, with the receding water, offered a myriad of unusual shapes and shadows. Already jumpy, Terazuma was expecting to find something malevolent in each one, but Wakaba brushed past him without a concern, perfectly happy to stand without protection or care on the rocks. She took up a position on an outcropping that, at high tide, would have been surrounded on three sides by water. 

“What did you see?” he growled, not trusting the quiet and peace of the night. 

She turned to face him, hands clasped behind her back, and while she was still smiling there was something different about it. He couldn’t quite place it, but his unease increased. Despite the smile, she didn’t really look happy.

“Hajime… I’m sorry. You need to know I’m transferring. I should have said something sooner, but…” she trailed off and watched him.  
He just stared at first, waiting for the smile to return, for it to be some sort of prank the others had put her up to. The water in the air was heavier out here, and he had to mentally stamp down on that parasite hiding inside him. He could not afford that distraction, much less what would happen if he lost control, not NOW.

“Why?” he managed to ask, voice gruff. He wasn’t going to beg, but if she was going to spring this on him like this, he felt he at least deserved that much of an answer. There were plenty of possibilities – if nothing else, having the added responsibilities as a gate guardian, not to mention being able to control his shiki better than he could might be stressful. But shouldn’t she have discussed it with him first?

She wouldn’t look directly at him now, first gazing down, then out across the water. “I just can’t do this anymore. The sixth district is quieter, and I’ll be working with Watari, who-“

“Watari?” He couldn’t help shouting it, incredulous, confused. That addle-brained, preening scientist didn’t have enough to do on that beat to keep HIMSELF out of trouble, and Kannuki could probably manage it in her down time, though he didn’t say any of that out loud. What were they thinking?

But she was still talking, having given his outburst only a brief pause. “-who knows a lot more about… about a lot of things, Hajime. And I’m sure you’ll be just fine working this beat with someone else.” She chanced a look at him again, this one earnest, honest, asking him to not be mad. “I think it’ll really give you a chance to shine.”

More like a chance to accidentally kill mortals, but he didn’t say THAT out loud either. Instead he struggled with several things he could say, things that he should say, and settled finally on-

“Fine.”

There was an edge of a snarl to the word that he didn’t bother to hide. But as soon as the word, the tone had escaped him, he felt himself turning red, his face growing hot, and he turned abruptly to keep her from seeing it. She might have sprung this on him, but she was free to make her own decisions about things and it was none of his business. She didn’t deserve that sort of attitude. But… damn it all!

He started stalking toward the forest again, one hand flexing and clenching against his side, but an unusual noise behind him stopped him. It had sounded like… like a cracking, like a tree branch snapping off under the weight of too much ice, but louder, and everything shook violently as though the entire world were breaking.

He turned back and saw exactly that.

The water, the sky and the muddy expanse of shore revealed by the dropping tide had both completely dropped away, leaving everything beyond the shore a black void. Kannuki stood on a rocky outcropping, arms windmilling as she teetered on the brink of that endless nothingness. 

“Shit!” It probably should have been a warning sign that he didn’t find the world breaking in half odd, but all he could focus on was his partner. Scrambling forward over the uneven ground, he fought to get there before she fell, he HAD to. Hand outstretched, he shouted, “Kannuki!”

She didn’t say anything at all as she started to fall backward into space, but it was okay, he was going to make it, he was-  
He didn’t feel the change, not like usual, but abruptly the hand he was reaching out to Wakaba became a paw, oversized, clawed. One bound and he was there by her side, the paw reaching for her.

And smacking hard into her torso, finishing the job that the shaking and gravity had begun.

 _No!_ he thought, grappling for control, but at this point he was all but passenger, and he could feel a feral sort of glee in the back of his mind as he watched her fall away. There was no anger, not even surprise, but just a sort of confusion in her face as she looked back up at him. _No, no, no, no no! This can’t be happening!_ But it was, and his body was betraying him, forcing him to sit and watch until she was gone.

Gone.

Dammit!

The world shook again, but it wasn’t until a shadow fell over him, deepening the darkness around him, that he stopped searching for some sign that this was all a mistake. He looked up to see something looming over him, as large to him as he in his shiki’s form had been to Wakaba. It took a few seconds for his mind to register what he was even seeing, it had been so long since he’d seen it from the outside. 

Terazuma’s form had gone back to his normal human shape, and now, somehow, Kagan Kuroshuki stood over him, larger than he ever remembered. _You… I’ll never get this chance again._ Grabbing the gun he still carried out of habit more than anything, he aimed for the thing’s face and fired, shot after shot, spaced so closely the individual cracks of the gun firing ran into one another and the bullets punctured the dark face in close formation.

It had no effect. He’d known it wouldn’t – knew that better than anyone – but it was a bitter pill to swallow just before the creature opened its own mouth and- 

__________

Terazuma startled into consciousness, half-sitting-up in his bed. His eyes scanned the room for the shiki, for the void, but there were only the austere walls of his room and he could feel his… the other one stirring angrily inside him. If there was one thing the pair of them agreed on, it was that neither particularly cared for this arrangement.

Satisfied that the visions of moments before had just been part of a bad dream, he climbed out of bed and got moving, only half aware that it was hours earlier than he usually started his day. He felt tense, keyed up from the dream, and if he didn’t do something productive, he was just going to pace around anyway. 

Doing his best to put the dream out of his mind, he prowled across the room and started getting ready to face the day.


	2. Impatience

Some people believed in the mysticism of their own dreams; that the future could be told if someone could only unravel the signals being sent to their subconscious.

Terazuma counted that belief among the many kinds of bullshit people used to try to make themselves feel important without doing any work.

Sure, dreams could tell you things, but only what you’d already seen – your mind putting together things in new ways while you sleep. He usually didn’t give them much thought, but this view of his mind’s nighttime adventure made him wonder if there was something in Kannuki’s behavior lately that he’d been overlooking. 

No. It couldn’t be. She was honest, to a fault. If she were that upset, she’d say something. That’s all there was to it. 

He wished he could put the whole thing out of his mind, but something – he suspected the lurking shiki, – kept reliving parts of it at the back of his mind, distracting him like a kid trying to get it’s mom’s attention by tugging on a pant leg. It was wearying and unavoidable, easy to shrug off as uselessness, but prone to giving him a headache.

Stepping in out of the overcast morning and into the main office building, Terazuma headed for their division and, shortly, his desk. Piles of papers of questionable use formed little drifts to either side of the work area, and after grabbing a cup of coffee, and taking off his coat, he sat down, and started making a listless attempt to sort through them. Crime report… invoice for damages from the library… list of open times at the range… folded note with a list of names he was sure he’d written, but couldn’t remember the reason for…

Footsteps drew his attention away from the papers and toward the door – the one to the break room, not the one he’d used. A number of people worked out of here, so it wasn’t at all surprising that someone else should be here, but it didn’t stop him from hunching over in frustration. He couldn’t get five minutes to just sit and work? Was the entire universe conspiring against him this morning?

The door opened and his eyes narrowed. And of course, it would have to be him. Keeping his eyes on the papers, Terazuma said flatly, “huh, you know your way in here without the chief setting up a cake trail. I suppose I should be impressed.”

Tsuzuki stopped in the doorway, looking for a moment like he might just go back through the door and leave the office. It seemed he decided not to. “Terazuma, doing work? Where's Wakaba?”

The dig was light, and sure, it was unusual to see him here without his partner, but there was no denying the edge underneath Tsuzuki’s tone. It didn't help that right now, his voice grated on every last nerve in Terazuma’s admittedly short supply. He set his coffee down carefully, before glaring up at his fellow shinigami.

“I hear you’ve screwed up bad enough you’re paying them to let you work here. As if you do any work.” He pointedly tapped the papers he’d been sorting through into a straight pile, completely ignoring how that single action had wiped out what little he’d managed to do so far.

It was actually a rarity for the two of them to be alone together in the staff office. Neither one was exactly an early riser, but most days Kannuki, and Terazuma, had both met up in the office, and gone out into the field, or down to do research (well, she did. Books and Terazuma got along almost as well as water and Terazuma) by the time Tsuzuki and his partner finished their morning work, and came into the office.

Tsuzuki stopped at his own desk, a similar mess to Terazuma’s, though with considerably more wrappers from cakes, and sweets between the stacks of reports and bills. “At least we both contribute to our cases,” Tsuzuki said. “You really shouldn’t let Wakaba carry most of the work, you know. She’s got a lot on her plate.”

Terazuma’s chair scraped against the floor, then fell over with a resounding bang as he stood up and slammed a fist onto the table. “You can say what you… wait. What’s that?”

Upon seeing Terazuma was looking in his direction, Tsuzuki ducked his head, and busied himself at his desk. But Terazuma was sure he’d seen…

“Did you eat that cake Kannuki had left in the refrigerator?” He didn’t need to hear a thing from Tsuzuki – to his eyes, the proof at the corners of the idiot’s mouth, the miniscule crumbs small enough to be missed by most people, were all he needed.

Apparently Tsuzuki remembered that, too, or at least he had the shame not to argue. Instead, wheedling, and a little plaintive, he said, “She said it was okay.”

Terazuma stalked forward, one slow step at a time. “Of course she did. She thinks about others. You think about yourself. Did you even, for one second-“

Tsuzuki had the grace to look ashamed for a moment, then a look of curiosity dawned on his face. He asked, “You’re just spoiling for a fight, aren’t you?”

“I'm just tired of your stupidity affecting everyone else,” Terazuma retorted flatly, unable to come up with anything better. His hand was flexing and tensing at his side as he prepared to transform, to just take out all that weird, tense energy he had on this oh-so-convenient target.

Tsuzuki’s eyes never left Terazuma’s. “Instincts taking over again?” he said, sounding almost apologetic. Apologizing for… Terazuma? Of all the mocking things…

“You-”

Terazuma started to loose the collar on his literal inner beast and could see Tsuzuki tense, ready to call on one of those trained monsters he used to fight for him in battle. Terazuma knew there would be hell to pay, possibly literally, if they wrecked this building too, but at the moment neither one cared.

Into the center of this lead-up the door opened. The combatants froze, looking guiltily toward the newcomers. 

Watari and Wakaba walked in, she laughing about something he’d just said, but they both stopped short at the sight they’d walked in on. 

“Uh… Hajime? Tsuzuki?” Kannuki blinked, then looked at Watari as though he might have some explanation for the situation. 

He did, but as Terazuma expected from him, it had nothing to do with the actuality of the moment. “It seems we interrupted a… private moment,” the blonde said, grinning wickedly. “Oh! I have just the potion for this, you two just wait right here, and-“

Terazuma turned, grabbed his coat off the floor, and stalked out of the room, muttering to his partner, “come on, we’ve got work to do.” He heard her make a cute, frustrated little sound at his back, but he didn’t stop. “And don’t think of slipping anything in my coffee,” he added to Watari without looking at the man. He’d know who it was for. There weren’t that many people in the place prone to making surprise experiments of people’s food.

He got out into the hallway, and the door shut behind him, leaving only his footsteps to keep him company. Maybe she wouldn’t come. After all, while he didn’t buy all that shit about dreams having hidden meaning, those earlier thoughts were coming back to him. Maybe there was something to her leaving. Maybe he’d seen it, and just hadn’t recognized it. She and Watari had been spending a lot of time around one another lately, always chatting about the stupidest things – gossip, their hair, clothing, stupid woman stuff. If that was what it took to keep her, he’d just learn to do without. Maybe he’d get more done.

Pausing in the middle of the hall, Terazuma frowned, then growled almost inaudibly, “That you?” He got no answer from the shiki – he rarely did – but there was a strange sense of self-satisfaction that followed on the heels of his question. So yes, he guessed. Yes, that particular thought had come from the thing that shared his body like a deadbeat roommate. Not sure which of them initiated the movement, he drew back, and drove his fist into the wall.

“Hajimeeee!”

He turned, returning his hand to his pocket to hide the split knuckles. They’d heal clean, and quick, but Kannuki worried about the stupidest things. “Yeah?” he asked as she came running up.

“What was that?” she asked. “You two were fighting again, weren’t you?”

He sighed. “Don’t ask stupid questions when you already know the answer,” he said, starting once more to walk down the hall. 

He heard her follow for a couple steps, then her voice, chiding and angry, said, “I’m promising you right now, Terazuma, if I catch you at that again, I will share those pictures with anyone who’s interested, and then good luck looking anyone in the face again.”

She was kidding. He thought she was kidding. She had to be kidding. Still he stopped again, head ducking, shoulders hunched in embarrassment. Those pictures, those damnable pictures she’d been holding over his head for how long?

Composing himself after a moment, he turned to her and asked, “What, do you want me to play nice with him? The idiot’s always jerking my chain.”

“He’s just joking, and you take it too seriously,” she retorted, hands on her hips. "And it's not as though you don't start things yourself. A lot."

“If it bothers you so much, you could get another partner,” he retorted. “Maybe Watari’s district? More free time to visit with those monsters from the Imaginary World.”

So it wasn’t the subtlest of ways to address the problem, but Terazuma was not the subtlest of men. 

Kannuki looked surprised and hurt. “What’s gotten into you today? It’s only been three or four minutes, and you’ve been acting completely… completely… I don’t know. What’s wrong, Hajime?”

It never occurred to him to explain what was actually bothering him. Instead, he just shook his head and started down the hall again. “Let’s get going. Er…” He paused, looking skyward, thinking, thinking…

“Er, where were we supposed to go today?”

With an exasperated sigh, she opened the folder she was carrying, and handed him a slim file. “Six people died. All women, different ages, different hometowns, no connection, except one? Ringing any bells?”

He flipped through the report, feeling an odd sense of relief. “The Miyajima Floating Shrine on Itsukushima,” he said. Now that he was looking at it, he remembered glancing over his own copy of this same file the previous evening just before leaving work for the day. It was probably somewhere in that jumbled pile of papers drifted on his desk. It also explained his dream, in part. 

Kannuki was watching him, arms still folded in her sternest possible stance. “So now you remember,” she said. “Do you want to go check it out? Or do you want to stay here and yell at some more people?”

He turned to fully face her, handing back the file, and meeting her gaze for a second. Her expression remained stern for a few seconds, then softened a little. “All right?” she asked. And that was all it took to make him feel like a complete heel. 

He scrubbed a few stray locks of hair out of his face and nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”


	3. The Shrine

While the shrine didn’t look exactly as it had in his dream, it wasn’t too far off. The image his mind conjured had been cobbled together from photographs and hearsay and half-forgotten memories. But the arch was the same, standing on the water because the tide was in when they’d taken the ferry over.

And that sense of uneasiness was the same as well.

Terazuma wore a hat pulled low to shadow his face, a concession he’d had to make in recent years whenever they entered the real world to investigate a case. There was little use trying to deny a certain conspicuous quality about himself these days.

“There have been six of them,” Kannuki was recounting from the case file. “All died twenty-four to thirty-six hours after visiting the island. All happened within the past month. All earlier than they should have died, and with a disease that looks remarkably similar from one to the next. Doctors keep calling it ‘an undiagnosed heart defect’ so this far, no one’s made the connection with this place.”

“If there is a connection,” Terazuma said. ‘Maybe it’s just a string of bad luck.”

“People don’t die before their time runs out from bad luck,” Kannuki replied. They were on one of the main walkways on the island, with few people around. Terazuma could see flashes of motion up ahead from someone almost out of sight through the trees, but their posture didn’t suggest they were anything worth worrying about.

“All, I’m saying is we could be wasting our time. It’s just a stupid island. Or maybe the problem was on the ferry, or the dock, not here,” he said, lighting up a cigarette, pointedly ignoring the dirty look she gave him when he did so. “Right now, we’ve got nothing to go on.”

“You’re right,” Kannuki said. “We need more information. Maybe we should look up the families of the deceased and ask them.”

“Yeah? How? I don’t think they’re just gonna answer a stranger’s personal questions.”

“Maybe I could pretend to be a policewoman, like Chizuru,” she mused.

He couldn’t help it – he laughed. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them had impersonated someone for the sake of an investigation, but the mental image of her cheerily walking the beat with some of the gang at his old precinct or trying to wring confessions out of suspects… it was more than his composure could take.

“You know, instead of laughing you could offer your own suggestion,” she said pointedly, arms folded, one eyebrow arched… but that grin was still in place.

Not wanting to test her patience further –fighting while out on assignment after this morning’s exchange just seemed like a lot of work – he coughed around his cigarette and cut off the laughter, clamping down on it the way he did on Kuro when he tried to come out and play unannounced, and-

Wait. Had he just called it Kuro? Oh, this day was just getting better and better.

As they approached a bend in the path, Kannuki suddenly stopped, then gestured Terazuma over. “Here, look at this. What do you think?”

The plants she was examining looked a little wilted, showing the silvered undersides of their drooping leaves. “Someone took a leak on ‘em?” he said, but the crude suggestion was forgotten as soon as it was made. The broken plants formed a faint trail, leading to a swirl pattern of flattened vegetation back under the trees. Before she could say anything about it, he waded through the first layer of undergrowth toward the spot.

The markings weren't obvious, but once he’d reached them, he felt sure that this… this was where some person or creature went to ground once it was done doing whatever it was doing.  
He could hear rustling as Kannuki followed, her voice saying urgently, “Be careful, we’re not sure how they’ll take to us trampling around here,” but he was studying the spot, taking a few steps, turning, looking from a different angle. If someone had been hiding here, be it person or animal, they had to have left a trace of themselves behind. Something to tell them if this was just someone sleeping on the island to try to get closer to the gods, or something worse.

It wasn’t until he began to actually ruffle the leaves in an effort to see beneath them that he found what he’d hoped for and plucked it out of the dirt. Kannuki peered down as he held the item in his palm. “What is… how odd.”

It was a tiny doll, no larger than the first joint of his pinky but carefully made. There was a charm on a hair-thin thread around its neck, but the mud had smeared on the paper, tearing off part of it and rendering the rest illegible.

Kannuki held out her hands and he dropped the item into them before heading back to the path. “Any idea what it is?” he asked her over his shoulder.

She waited until she, too, was back on the path before speculating. “I’d say it looks like it’s meant for some sort of spell,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it, but I’ve seen something similar. They’re just not normally so small, or so detailed. I imagine they might try to nail it to a tree, but something this small, it wouldn’t last very long, if the nail didn’t just destroy it.”

“A needle?”

“I don’t think it would hold it long enough,” she said. “How very odd. I’m going to ask Watari if he can look into it for us as soon as we get back.”

Terazuma's hackles rose a little at the scientist’s name, but he forced himself to calm down. He'd look like the idiot, getting worked up over a stupid dream. “Yeah? Well, let’s check out the shrine too, before we go. Tide should still be out.”

Kannuki tucked away the little doll, then grinned at him. “Oh? You want to go leave a coin in the cracks for luck?”

“No. People don’t solve their damn cases with luck,” he replied. “It’s just where a lot of people travel. We might see something.”

“You’re sure it’s okay for you to-“

“The tide’s down. It’ll be fine,” he replied perfunctorily, unconsciously mirroring one of dream-her’s lines. She, also unaware of the fact, looked worried but made no argument as the two of them headed for the arch.

The muddy expanse left bare by the sea was as he remembered it from his dream, even in the full light of day. Their footprints traced their route from the shore to the arch.

His partner was making a face at the way the ground grabbed at their shoes, but she soldiered on without complaint, even when one of the people who’d already been out there bumped into her on his way back, nearly knocking her over. Terazuma had been ready to demand an apology on her behalf for his rudeness after the offender just kept going, but she’d shushed him and they’d continued on.

It was probably for the best anyway. Low tide or no, the ghost of the water hung in the air and left him feeling grumpier than usual.

A number of people had done just as Kannuki had jokingly suggested earlier. Coins in various denominations had been hidden in the worn mooring of the fabled “floating” arch. Terazuma found himself studying the waterline, the somewhat blurred spot on the gate where the water lapped at its highest point. The structure still looked solid and well-built, but the wear of the waves showed itself in discoloration, softening. He could see splinters pointing outward like tiny little spears protecting the structure.

“Why do people bother?” he asked, prowling around the gate though he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “Good luck…”

“It gives them hope,” she laughed. “Here. I’ll ask for luck for the both of us, and maybe- Ow!”

Her shout startled him. His head swiveled around as he asked, “Kaanuki? What is it?”

“Ooooh, that was so careless. Splinter.” She stuck her finger in her mouth and walked over to him. “See anything?”

“Nothing.” He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find. Coins. Mud. Splinters. Footprints. Scraps of fabric. The tiny traces of a dozen visitors left carelessly behind to be washed away with the next tide. Nothing.

She accepted this with a nod of her head. “Fine. Then let’s just talk with someone up at the temple, and then we can get back and see what we can find on that little doll. I’ll ask about the latest victim.”

The place seemed fairly empty as they made their way up to where some of the caretakers walked. Kannuki took the lead here, trotting up behind the man with a picture from their file in one hand. “Excuse me, please,” she said brightly.

The man turned, frowning, but his expression softened when he saw her. “How may I help you, miss?” he asked.

“I’m very sorry to bring this up, but I was wondering… this person. Do you remember seeing her here recently?”

He looked at the picture she was holding out, then frowned at Kannuki. His eyes then travelled to Terazuma and the mistrustful expression deepened. “Are you more police?” he asked. “A little young aren’t you? At least, you are.” He seemed to have decided it was best to operate as though Terazuma wasn’t there and addressed himself completely to Kannuki.

“Do we look like police?” Terazuma growled, ignoring the irony. The look the man shot him in response was full of some indistinct accusation. He started to push up one sleeve-  
-and then a subtle wave from Kannuki stopped him. Still glowering, Terazuma crossed his arms and leaned against a post, muttering, “Making accusations at complete strangers…”

Ignoring him, Kannuki pulled the picture back, clasping it to her chest with both hands. “No,” she said softly. “Please forgive my brother. It’s just… she was very important to me. And she died so… so fast. I just wondered if there was anything, any hint that might tell me what happened. And this was one of the places she visited, so I asked him to take me here, and I just thought…” She trailed off. Her voice had become soft, emotional. Even Terazuma, who’d seen this side of her a few times, found the tense irritation that set his face in a glare softening.

The effect seemed at least as strong for the caretaker. He tried to keep his stern look, but failed about as spectacularly as possible, leaving him just looking ill for a moment before finally capitulating. “Let me see it again? When did you say she visited?”

“It was a week ago today,” she said meekly, handing the photo over again. “Just… anything, anything you can tell me.”

He studied the image briefly. “I don’t remember her, but there were police here yesterday asking about her.” Terazuma winced inwardly. Their information had been that no one had made the connection yet. So that was wrong. What else was? “There were a couple who saw her. They said she seemed in good spirits and perfectly healthy. She was here most of the day, but nothing stood out. I could go get one of them though, if you’d rather hear it from them.”

Kannuki shook her head slowly. “No. No, it’s fine. Thank you.”

She turned to leave and Terazuma followed, after giving the caretaker one last hard look. The study was lost on the man, who had already turned back to sweeping the walkway. Could he have had something to do with it? He seemed like a normal enough mortal, and sincere enough, but he knew from experience that people could be guilty but so convinced of their own innocence they seemed perfectly guiltless.

It couldn’t hurt to keep him in mind, anyway.

Once they were a decent ways from the buildings, Kannuki turned and began walking backward while talking to Terazuma. “This place feels so normal,” she mused, her steps skipping lightly despite that she was going in reverse. “I was expecting we’d be able to find some trace of a spell, or signs of violence, or something."

“Tch. This was just a waste of time,” he muttered. “Maybe we should go back and ask that guy some more questions. I didn’t like the way he looked.” His teeth ground on his cigarette.

“You don’t like the way anyone looks,” Kannuki teased. “He seemed forthcoming enough. But yeah, maybe tomorrow we see what we can find out about the families. Maybe there’s another connection we missed. Any maybe we’ll get something off that doll. Let’s take it back and see if Watari has time-“

Terazuma rolled his eyes and said, “Watari again. Do we really have to deal with him?”

“Unless you know how to figure out what this thing is,” Kannuki said thoughtfully, holding the little item between two fingers. “Then yes.”

And really, there was no answer to that except an exasperated sigh.


	4. Something she's never seen before

Watari’s work area, cluttered and overflowing with both papers and experiments, made Terazuma’s desk seem orderly by comparison. Taking a drag on his cigarette (only the fifth so far, he realized, which was a minor miracle considering how the day had started) Terazuma hung back while his partner approached their fellow shinagami. 

Something about this place just bothered Terazuma, always had. Much like this morning’s issue, the feeling had no concrete source so he did his best to ignore it. Arms folded, he kept an eye on the proceedings.

“We found it near some trampled plants,” Kannuki was explaining as she handed the little doll over to Watari. “It might be nothing, just a charm from some necklace or something, but the place we found it seemed odd.”

Watari peered at the little item, first through and then over his glasses, as though having trouble focusing on it. “Interesting,” he said. “Something like a wara ningyou, but so small and so… why put a face on it like that if… please don’t smoke around my papers. Oh, I need a closer look at that charm.”

Watari's commentary flowed so ceaselessly that Terazuma didn’t at first realize the smoking dig was for him. “Huh?” he grunted, but Watari was already past the subject and didn’t seem to be giving it another thought, so he just trailed after the pair of them, cigarette still in his mouth.

“I’ve been to the shrine once,” Watari was saying as he prepared to take a closer look through a microscope. “Beautiful if you approach by water. Did you make a wish while you were there, Wakaba?”

“I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. It did prickle a little though. The gate was a bit splintery,” she confessed. Then her tone took on a more accusatory air as she said, “Some other people couldn’t be bothered though.”

Watari didn’t even look up from where he was adjusting the instrument. “It does take a certain amount of imagination to come up with a good wish,” he said. “And if you… oh! Aww…” His voice went from conversational to excited to disappointed in the space of three words. “I can see the start of… too bad it got wet, lost some of the curse. Looks like a wara ningyou, but I’ve never seen one built like this. Why the size? And… hold on.”

He stepped lightly away from the microscope and over to a computer terminal, where he began typing so quickly the individual click and clatter of the keys blurred into a staccato wash.   
Kannuki sidled over to the microscope and peered through the eyepiece. “I’ve seen something similar, but I can’t tell from what we’ve got if the charm was meant to be a curse from someone angry or a love charm that some middle-school girl to try to get some young man to…”

He trailed off and looked up with what, to Terazuma at least, was an unsettlingly thoughtful expression, complete with excited gleam in his eye. This pause lasted about three seconds before Watari shook his head and went back to his typing.”Anyway, you’re in luck. I may not know the answer, but this challenge will not get the better of me! Things have been slow around Henjoucho and this is just what I needed. Now if I-“

As Watari continued blathering, Terazuma rubbed a palm over his eyes. The overly friendly and talkative shinigami was no Tsuzuki, but there were times… “Kannuki, are you okay here? I think I’ll go back and write up today’s investigation or...”

The reaction to that – abrupt silence and twin eyebrow raises from the other two – startled him to silence for a moment. “Uh… what?” he asked, taking a defensive step backward.

“Did you just offer to go do the paperwork on today’s trip?” Kannuki asked, an edge of playful incredulity in her voice. “You who usually says we can just put off doing any of it until the case is over, instead of each day? You who usually complains so much about filling out the forms that I usually end up doing it anyway? And now you’re offering to do it out of the blue?”

He looked from one to the other expectant face – she looking as though she was trying to keep from laughing, while Watari just looked disbelieving. “Wha… uh… well, if you don’t want me to,” he growled, turning partly away as he felt his face grow warm. “I was just sayin’-“

“No, no, please,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her and ducking her head apologetically. “That would actually be great. I was only teasing. I’m actually feeling a little tired after our trip and would like the chance to get a little extra rest, if you don’t mind.”

Tired? They weren’t out that long today. Although, she had apparently been at work even earlier than he. “Yeah, it’s no problem,” he said, looking away from both of them and feeling his face get even warmer. “Get some rest. We’ll get back to it tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” she said cheerfully. As he turned to leave, she concluded, “Thanks, Hajime.”

Lacking a response that wouldn’t sound completely foolish, Terazuma fled the room for the boring but predictable refuge of his desk.


	5. Faces

“Hajime, do you hate people?”  
  
They were sitting on a bench outside some business or other – they’d come to interrogate someone, but the purpose fled his mind and he blanched at the sudden question. “Wh… no. No, I don’t… well, maybe. Some people.”  
  
She sighed.” Just some people? Really, you act like you’re just waiting for the day you get to destroy the world. “  
  
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, then stood and walked around behind the bench to light another cigarette before answering. “Jeeze, Kannuki, what’s with the weird questions? Or… great.”  
  
He was dreaming again. With the realization came awareness of several facts – first that the building they were outside was actually in Chidsuru’s district. Second, that there was an irritation in Wakab… Kannuki’s face he couldn’t remember seeing before. Third, he could feel his shiki stirring at the back of his mind. That last made his skin run cold.  
  
He truly had no secret place from that monster.  
  
As he thought the word “monster,” the shiki made its presence felt. It wasn’t seriously trying to break out – it didn’t do so very often, and when it did he was often powerless to stop it – but he felt his thoughts take a dark turn.  
  
That change showed most in Wakaba’s voice, which became more flat, more accusatory. “You’ve been trying to work that dream out. Well, here’s the truth. You’re afraid, Hajime. You’re afraid and you’re scared to admit it to anyone.”  
  
“I don’t need to hear this from you,” he said, leveling his gaze at the appearance of his partner. Briefly she returned his stare, then her form wavered, her hair grew dark, her face elongated. “Just shut up.”  
  
The shiki grinned, having completely replaced Kannuki in his dream. It didn’t say anything, didn’t have to, but he shouted at it again anyway. “Just shut the hell up! NEVER wear her face. Just-“  
  
“No? How about this then?” There was no fade this time, just an abrupt change. One moment it was the shiki and the next-  
  
“You.” He only managed a whisper, at first. That face... it shouldn't be here, shouldn't be anywhere, scraped from the furthest corners of his mind, and he couldn't-  
  
“Wake up. Wake UP!”  
  
__________  
  
He awoke to sharp pain in both hands. He looked down to see his nails, crimson-tipped, pull loose from his palms. For a few seconds he just stared at the wounds, watching them slowly close. This had to stop. It was all this stupid, childish worry. Worrying about Kannuki was breaking his focus, and when his focus slipped, the shiki got more of a foothold. It had been going on since… since that man…  
  
He sat up and pressed his palms over his eyes, blocking out the room for a moment. Time to get it together. The situation with the shiki was what it was, and that man was long gone. He was in charge in this body, his body. Time to start acting like it.  
  
Certain that more sleep might be impossible, he got up. Early again, he noted. As he crossed in front of the mirror, he noticed that he’d managed to smear some of the blood from his palms onto his face. He cleaned it off slowly, deliberately, and refused to see anything more in it.


	6. Sick day

He’d done the paperwork the night before as promised, so for the second morning in as many days, he set about trying to clean his desk. As stupid as it felt to have to spend time on this pointless task, it was simple and mindless, and as he got into the rhythm of it, he could feel the lingering irritation from the dream slipping away. 

“Terazuma.”

His hands paused in mid-sort and his spine stiffened. “Yes, Tatsumi?” he asked without turning around. Mentally he was running over the last few days. They’d closed up a case a couple days ago, was something wrong with one of those? The fight yesterday had been stopped before it got to any property damage, and despite everything, it had been a good while since his shiki got out of control and wrecked anything major.

The financial stickler and all around hardass said, “I just got word that Miss Kannuki won’t be coming into the office today. She asked that you be told to go ahead without her for today.”

That got him to turn. “What, she sick?” His own question processed for a few seconds, then he said, “Wait. She can’t be sick, can she?”

Tatsumi shrugged. “She said she needed a day to herself. If you want to know more, talk to Watari, it was him who stopped by, and she sent the message with him.”

The paper in Terazuma’s hand crackled and crumpled in his fist. In a voice he thought was controlled, he asked, “Watari? And just what was he doing over there so early?”

“I don’t know,” Tatsumi said. “You know how he can be. Ask him yourself, if you want to know. Ask nicely.” There was no mistaking the icy implication in his tone on the last word. Terazuma grunted in reply and tossed the crumpled paper back on his desk on his way out the door. 

Watari’s lab was in a difference section of the building, but at a rapid walk, it only took a few minutes to get there. When he arrived, Terazuma didn’t bother knocking, he just barged in. “Watari-“

“Terazuma!” The happy tone that greeted him wasn’t at all what he was expecting. Watari sashayed out from behind a table full of lab equipment. “I was just coming up to see you. Wait until you see what I found about this item you and Wakaba brought to me.”

It took all the self-control Terazuma had to wait out this mini speech. As Watari stopped for breath, he asked, “What’s wrong with Kannuki?”

Terazuma swore he could actually see the wheels in the other shinigami’s head grind to a halt, then switch tracks and start moving again as the question completely derailed his running commentary. “Kannuki… oh. She just seemed tired. I stopped by to tell her about what I found, you see. It was just too good to wait any longer, I figured we could discuss it over breakfast. But she said she needed a day off and asked me to let Tatsumi know.”

“Tatsumi? And not me.” A feral laughter echoed in the back of his head as the second part of that question just turned into a flat statement.

Watari was on the move again, this time to one of the notebooks open on a nearby table. As he flipped through a couple pages and scanned their contents, he said, “I guess she thought he’d tell you. Chain of command and everything. Or maybe she just wanted to put off telling you, in case you’d think it was your fault. I imagine you’d know better than me, you’re her partner.”

“Why would she think I’d blame myself?” he asked. Watari didn’t even look up as he answered.

“Well, you do leave a lot of the work to her you know. And your temper. And you fight with her friends. And it takes energy, you know, to bring you back when you let your animal side show. And-“

“Fine! Fine. I get it,” Terazuma said, feeling a headache brewing. “Whatever, if she needs a rest, then she needs a rest. What was that doll thing?”

Watari immediately brightened up again. “The item you found is indeed a brand of curse doll. It’s very rare, because of the power its user has to have innately. I only found one reference to it in our library, and-“

“What is it?” Terazuma repeated, a definite edge to his voice.

While he was never able to intimidate Watari, Terazuma seemed really good at irritating him, as evidenced by an unamused stare. “It’s backward from a normal curse doll. You know how-“  
“I know.”

That evoked an exasperated sigh. “Very well. Instead of the curse beginning to take effect when the doll is affixed to… to… whatever it’s affixed to, this one begins to take effect when it falls loose. It was used to delay the start of the curse so its caster could establish and alibi or just get out of the area. It’s a little tricky to use though. You need blood and hair from the victim, and the doll needs to be affixed to a place of power.”

“Huh.” He saw the shrine in his mind, its worn wood stained from the water. Suddenly, it made sense. What a perfect spot. Affixing the dolls with pins just before the tide came in would not only allow someone with this ability to activate the curse, but would allow them to tell roughly when the curse would start. A pin would be too weak to stand against the waves for long.  
Watari continued rambling, having apparently found what he was looking for in the notebook. “It transfers something, I think. Power? Memories? It’s hard to tell from the fragment of the spell you brought back, but I can tell more if you find a more complete sample. But whatever it takes, it weakens the target and strengthens the caster. Nasty curse.”

Terazuma nodded. “That’ll narrow things down. You going to see Kannuki again later?”

“I think _you_ should go see her,” Watari replied.

“Are you going, or-“

The scientist sighed. “Yes, probably. I was thinking of bringing her some lunch, since it appears you’re not planning on doing so.”

“Tell her I’ll take care of things. She should… just rest,” he said gruffly. That said, he turned to go, but stopped again when Watari called his name.

“Terazuma. Be careful,” he advised as the former detective turned back. He actually sounded serious, for once. “This one could be dangerous. We don’t really know anything about this sort of power. Maybe you should wait for Wakaba to go with you.“

He felt his face flare with heat. First he wasn’t doing enough as Wakaba’s partner, and now he needed to wait to do anything until she was with him? “Make up your damn mind,” he muttered, turning his back on the lab and leaving.


	7. Back to the scene of the crime

It felt odd, heading out on assignment alone. Seemed to take longer to get back to that accursed water-wrapped shrine, for one. He tried to use the time to decide how to proceed once he got there, but his mind kept wandering back to his partner. It was weird. She’d never missed a day of work that he could recall, and these shinigami bodies… these weren’t human bodies. Tired? Mentally tired maybe. That had to be it. Concentrate on the case. The case.

The series of deaths still didn’t seem to have affected activity on the island. His preternatural hearing caught bits of casual conversation as he headed to the building. He wanted another talk with that man who’d been sweeping the other day. He wanted to ask the guy some question himself.

Except he couldn’t. There was someone different out doing the daily cleaning, who looked up and greeted Terazuma as he walked up. Drawing on his pre-death experience, Terazuma walked up and asked perfunctorily, “Hey, where’s the guy who was cleaning yesterday?”

“Several of us share the chores,” the man said calmly. “Who are you looking for?”

He tried to replay the conversation in his mind, but found it was mostly indistinct, and he didn’t recall a name having been given. “About this tall,” he tried instead. “Dark hair, long and pulled back. Acting suspicious.”

That last was a mistake. He knew it as soon as it left his mouth. The other man’s expression darkened. “I’m sorry, what was your business again?” he asked. A perfectly logical question, but there was no mistaking the guarded tone. 

“I didn’t say,” Terazuma replied, irritation leaking into his voice. “But I’m here about some deaths, and I had some questions for him about them, so if you’re hiding him-“

“I’m afraid you need to leave sir,” the man said, interrupting the tirade. “And your threats are not appreciated.” The way he was holding the broom changed ever so slightly, but Terazuma had been in enough fights to know the guy was getting ready in case he needed it as a weapon. A couple others were gathering around, watching the scene curiously. Some were from the temple, but others were just visitors. 

“-trying to pick a fight in this place?”

“-What’s all that noise?”

“Who would tattoo his face like that unless-“ 

So much for keeping a low profile. Unsure how to do so gracefully, Terazuma pulled his hat low and settled for making his escape quickly. Whether no one followed or they were just unable to keep up, he was alone again relatively quickly.

Once he was sure he wasn't being followed, he started walking the paths and lit up a cigarette, trying to calm down. He could feel the shiki testing at the back of his mind, looking for a weak spot in his resolve, but Terazuma was too angry at himself and that man and the world in general to care.

“Great,” he muttered to himself. “Now what?” But he already knew the answer to that too. He had two options. One, head back and wait for his partner to feel better, maybe leading to more victims and letting people keep think he couldn’t handle anything without her. Or two, use another of his old police tactics.

No question. It was time for a stakeout.


	8. Stakeout

The most difficult part had been getting into the tree without leaving a scent trail across the suspected hiding spot. It wasn’t something he would have thought of himself, but Kagan Kuroshuki’s instincts led him to taking a very roundabout path and climbing into a tree a little ways away, but with a decent view of the spot. He made himself invisible to normal people, but that wouldn’t mean nothing could see him, so it was important to have a little cover. So he found his spot, he settled in, then he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

People walked by, time passed, and eventually daylight gave way to twilight. Terazuma tried to keep focused on the matter at hand, but damn, doing this alone was torturously boring. Just him and that subtle indent in the plants. At least this was something he didn’t need help with. From the look of the space, it seemed like it should be an animal, but what sort of animal would make curse dolls? Maybe he should have told Watari about that. No, Wakab… Kannuki would have if it was important. She was on top of those sorts of things. But it did look like an animal’s sleeping place. Maybe…

SNAP

The crackling of the underbrush startled Terazuma. As he grabbed wildly for the branch, he realized everything had gone dark. Full-on nighttime. Had he dozed off?

As he reset himself on the branch, his eyes sought out the nest - then fastened on movement within it.

Something was there. Something that looked human.

Wordlessly, he dropped from the tree. The shadowed creature turned toward him and straightened up, but made no effort to run as he approached. Finishing another doll? Prepping a spell? Terazuma didn't know, and he didn't care, the suspect was right there. He stepped into the clearing and reached out.

_Fwsssssh._

Light flared up around him, dazzling his darkness-adjusted and already hypersensitive eyes. The illumination seared like a brand. He threw an arm up protectively and pulled back, only to run into something unyielding. He struck backward with his free arm, but encountered the same thing – an obstruction, solid as a wall, in a space he'd walked through seconds before.

“Huh. Usually even humans don’t jump so blindly into my traps,” said a voice from beyond his awareness. “Still. Are you one of them? Are you a shinigami?”

Terazuma hesitated. How did… no. No time. “Did you kill those women?” he demanded as he peeked out from behind his hand. The light was no longer as painful, but he couldn’t see anything beyond the white perimeter. It was as though someone had stuck him in the bottom of an aluminum can and set a fluorescent light to "supernova." He was trapped, for the moment. He drew back and slammed a fist into it. The cylinder barely shuddered. 

“Of course I did! And it worked!” The voice, a strained tone that sounded neither male nor female, was almost laughing with glee. “I thought so, the curse felt so different this time. I’ve been searching a long time you know. For her. Trying to draw her to me. The Guardian of the South Gate, here. So kind of her to leave her blood on the gate.”

Orienting on the voice, Terazuma slammed his fist forward again, only to have it once more stopped by the wall of light. “What did you do to her?” he raged blindly.

The voice laughed outright. “It’s interesting. She's not weak like the others. My blood curse can’t kill her, but I can keep draining her. Weakening her. And feeding me. All I need is for her to do one thing for me though, and I’ll be happy to sever the curse.”

Another punch. A kick. The barrier wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t budge! Frantically, Terazuma threw himself against it. Nothing. It was like he wasn’t even there for all the effect he was having. The target was right there, RIGHT THERE, and he…

“I heard about you in my research too. Even their meager assessment overestimated you though, it looks like.” The voice was noticeably cooler now. “Really? You can’t get out of there? Well, no matter, you don’t have to be terribly competent to carry a message do you?”

At that comment, it was not Terazuma’s anger that flared, but the shikigami’s. Momentarily diverting his focus, Terazuma struggled to keep it under control. _Weak, he thinks?_ it roared in his head, its voice like metal on stone.

 _Not here!_ Terazuma thought at it. _If you can’t break it either, we’ll both be crushed._  
  
It felt certain it could break them free, but Terazuma didn’t trust it. He mentally clamped down, leaving the shikigami to howl uselessly against his skull. There had to be another way. He needed control. Power. Like being at the range. The quiet, and the focus.

“I need you to tell her to meet me here at midnight. Any night will do. But alone. I can hide myself well. I won’t be coming out if she has company.”

Archery was calm and focus. Terazuma pictured the targets, the boards. How it felt with the bowstring and arrow in his fingers. Concentration. Intensity, but directed.

“She does a favor for me, I end the spell and we part ways. Simple enough.”

There was no bow, not here, but Terazuma wasn’t sure the bow was the point. If he focused, if he condensed everything…

He slammed a fist into the glowing prison. This time, there was an audible crack.

Outside, the voice ceased its monologue. “Oh? Interesting. Slower than I expected, but not as bad as I’d feared.”

Terazuma struck again, and could feel the thing starting to give now. That focus slipped away and he just threw himself at it, further cracking and finally breaking the barrier. The light shattered and faded, leaving the two of them again in the forested darkness. Colored afterimages swam across his vision, obscuring everything of his enemy except for its wide smile.

“Ahh, there you go.” Terazuma swung a fist at it, but it easily sidestepped. “ Now, just give her the message won’t you? Not that I mind terribly if you don’t.” It jumped away from his continuing attacks, landing on a nearby tree branch, and grinned.

“After all, there are other gates. And I could feed on her energy for a lifetime.”

The shiki surged to the front. Terazuma wasn’t sure if he had called it forth, or if it was pushing free on its own, and he didn’t care. Their enemy was going to hurt, it was going to SUFFER! 

Laughing, the creature watched Terazuma’s form change, then leaped nimbly off through the trees, leaving the shiki to crash along behind. The scent of its passing was like a glowing line for Kagan Kuroshuki to follow.

Until they hit the water’s edge.

They broke from the trees and the trail just stopped at the shore. They looked left, then right, then over the water. Nothing, no ripple of passing. No sign. No NOTHING!

Their howl of pure frustration cut to the skies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends the old stuff. Now to see if I have the gumption to continue work on a 7-year-old story.


End file.
